It’s about 75 minutes to drive the 75 km to work (from Gent to Brussels). A lot of people tell me they’d be totally stressed out from traffic by the time they’d actually get to work, but I’ve discovered it’s the perfect time to finally listen to some music again. Last Saturday I discovered they stocked the autumn harvest for nonesuch at the fnac, so I was able to spend the week listening to these four discs:
Steve Reich’s Triple Quartet (amazon UK US)
Ingram Marshall’s Kingdom Come (amazon UK US)
John Adams’ El Niño (amazon UK US)
Terry Riley’s Requiem for Adam (by Kronos Quartet) (amazon UK US)
The above order is not at random, but mark my preference (and recommendation) top to bottom. (I will not give you an actual review of these discs, but a gut feeling about them.) I wasn’t too fond of Requiem for Adam, but liked El Niño more. Even so, I’d rather recommend another work of John Adams such as Century Rolls or I was looking at the ceiling and then I saw the sky. El Niño doesn’t seem like Adams enough, but is too reminiscent of Nyman (the opening) and Glass (most of the singing). If you want a recommendation for Riley, try In C (especially if you like Reich) –I have the Ictus Live disc (featuring Blindman Quartet).
Ingram Marshall’s Kingdom Come was a revelation for me (no pun intended) -I’m definitely going to try other work by Marshall. His music is seems so quiet and fragile.
For a must buy, Triple Quartet is really amazing. Then again I’ve always had a soft spot for Reich’s phasing in and out…